On January 14, the Breakfast of Leaders forum will hold a roundtable, “Knowing What it Takes to Create a Prepared and Resilient Organization: A Leader’s Responsibility.” The roundtable will feature a panel of private sector security leaders, moderated by Dave McWhorter of Catalyst Partners.
I hope Americans are awake and trying to obtain information from REAL news sources. At what point in our history did we rewrite the role of the press? For most of my life (and that has been a good while), their role was to report the facts of the news and confirm them before they are broadcast to the world. Clearly some have gone to sleep at the switch and believe that writing an editorial or “opinion piece” is now the news.
In an article published today in CQ Homeland Security, Security Debrief Contributors Rich Cooper, Sam Rosenfeld, James Carafano and Security Debrief founder Chris Battle weighed in on how the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others impacts DHS.
Saturday’s active shooter incident in Tucson, Arizona – the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others – demonstrates (again) that we cannot predict every negative event. We cannot manage all the causes because we cannot predict all the causes, but we can predict all the effects. The shooting in Tucson is a tragedy that hopefully will teach a wide range of lessons if people are willing to learn.
The Washington Post is reporting that a suspicious packaged ignited at a Washington, DC post office that screens mail sent to federal agencies.
In July 2009, the Department of Homeland Security announced the kick-off of a 60-day task force review of the Homeland Security Advisory System. Then, in November 2010, the press reported that DHS had decided to scrap the color-coded system and would unveil the new system in several weeks. It has been 18 months since DHS announced a 60-day task force review. It’s time to decide.
As you may have noticed, we’ve slowed the pace of publishing through the Christmas week and the week leading up to New Year’s. We’ll continue to publish sporadically during this period — and don’t worry, we’ll back in full force after the New Year.
By Edward Alden
The DHS Office of the Inspector General this week released a report on implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which for the first time in U.S. history requires all crossers at the land borders with Canada and Mexico to present secure documents. While 96 percent of border crossers complied, four percent did not. Senator Cornyn voiced concern about this four percent, but in a free and open country like the United States, there can never be such a thing as a completely secure border.
By Edward Alden
Nearly a decade after the United States and Canada set the early template for cross-border cooperation in the post-9/11 era with the 2001 Smart Border Accords, the two governments finally appear ready to take the next step towards a genuine system of “perimeter security.” While the initiative as outlined makes tremendous sense on both sides of the border, it will face significant opposition in Canada from those who fear that national sovereignty will be sacrificed on the altar of continental security, and in the United States from those who favor unilateral approaches to securing the borders.
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